Spring Break
by E-beefs
Summary: A boy and his family go to a fancy resort secluded in the woods were they meet a man that has more on his mind than just a getaway vacation.


**Spring Break**

I remember the day. I was 17 years old. My family and I went to a big fancy resort for spring break. My little brother Richy was really excited because we had never actually gone anywhere for spring break before. I, on the other hand, liked staying home. It just made things so much simpler and less hectic.

"Come on you guys get in the van," my dad called out.

As my brother ran down the stairs with his bags stuffed with clothes I was just starting to pack. I kept going over things in my head to make sure I wasn't forgetting anything. Toothbrush - check, pants - check, couple of shirts - check, socks, - check. _Boxers or briefs? _

"Devin Bacon get down here now!" my dad yelled.

I grabbed a handful of clothes, shoved them in the bag and ran downstairs and into the car. The car ride took about two-and-a-half hours. Once we got there we all took our luggage to the front desk and asked for our room. As we were waiting for the key a man walked up and asked for his room. The woman behind the desk paused and told him that we already had that room. She started to apologize but he insisted that it was okay, and he took another room.

When we got to the room, we unpacked and started to relax. Richy and I would share a room since there were only two bedrooms. The room alone was huge! We had our own TV and even a Nintendo 64 with Mario. All I wanted to do then was sleep. Although the ride there was long, I couldn't get any rest because my brother kept bugging me the whole ride there. As I was almost asleep I heard my mom calling.

"Devin why don't you take Richy around and so him the place."

_What does she mean by 'so him the place' it's not like I've been here before? But, fine... _I dragged Richy out the door. The place had an inside water park, so naturally Richy wanted to go there first.

"Let's go in there!" Richy said.

"No," I said.

"Why not?" he whined.

"Because you'll get your clothes wet and were not going back to our room because mom wants me to show you around."

The hotel had a place to eat with a huge buffet that offered practically five different kinds of anything. I got hungry as we passed it. I looked out the window and saw a huge garden centre. Behind the garden centre was a huge forest that went around the whole resort and a mountain at the edge of the forest. I looked at my watch. It was about time to go back to our room and get ready to eat.

"Come on," I told Richy as we headed back.

Once we got there we both started to change into some nicer clothes.

"I hope you guys liked what you saw at the buffet because we're eating there tonight," my mom said.

"Why do we need to where our nice clothes if we're just going to a buffet to eat?" Richy said.

"Because we don't want people to think that were a bunch of slobs," Mom responded

"Have you seen the way half of the people who eat there dress?" I said.

"Enough you guys. Let's just get there and try to have a nice dinner," my dad chimed in.

When we got to the restaurant we looked and saw no place to sit. The waitress came up to us and told us that they had no more room. But as we were about to turn around and look for someplace else to eat, I saw someone waiving to us. It was the man that we had the mix-up with the rooms with earlier. He asked us if we wanted to eat with him since he got a table that could fit six people and he wasn't expecting anyone. My dad said that he wasn't sure if we should drop in like that but the guy convinced the waitress that we were with him in the first place.

As we sat down at his table he said his name was Ray and asked us where we were from. We told him and asked him the same as we got our drinks and ordered our food. He asked Richy and I what grade we were in and what I was planning on going into once I was out of high school. He was pretty fun to talk to and my parents appeared to be getting along with him well. Once we got our food and ate, my parents thanked him again for letting us with him and he said it was no problem.

"Maybe we'll see each other another time," Ray said as we all started toward the door.

"Yeah maybe," my dad said smiling.

Later that night as I lay in bed I wondered about all the things that we could do during the trip. I imagined being able to finally relax and not have to worry about anything. As I thought about all that I finally did relax and fell asleep.

The next day I woke up to my brother in the middle of a nerd rage over Mario 64. I left the room and told my parents I was going for a walk. Once I got outside I found a path though the trees that was out of the way and away from most of the vacationers. I tried to clear my mind from everything by listening to the birds sing and the trees sway in the wind. Then all of the sudden I felt like someone was watching me. I looked behind me and saw Ray.

"Hey Devin, what are you doing out here?" he asked.

"Not much just trying to clear my mind," I replied

"You too huh?" he said

"Have you ever noticed that the setting sun is sort of like the end of someone's life?"

"Uhh yeah I guess so, I never really thought about that?" I said. We talked a little bit longer until we got to the end of the trail which opened up near the main entrance of the hotel.

"Well, see around," He said before he headed to the main door.

"_Why did he mention that thing about the sun and people's lives ending? That's kind of creepy, _I thought. Once I got back to the hotel my parents and brother were up and dressed and they said they were going down to the restaurant to eat breakfast and they asked if I wanted to come. I said "sure" and so we went down to the buffet to eat. We started to eat and I told them that I met Ray on my walk. As soon as they heard that, they started saying that they really liked Ray and that we ought to get him something for being such a kind man. Then I told them about what he said to me during the walk and their moods changed a little.

"That is kind of weird," my dad said and my mom agreed with him.

"Maybe he lost a loved one and the sunset reminds him of them," My mom said trying to give the rest of us a little reassurance that everything was still normal.

A couple of days went by and none of us had seen Ray around. We had been at the resort for about eight or nine days by then. Then on the last day of the vacation my mom and dad told Richy and I about this trail they had heard about that had as great view of a river that ran all through the state. So my brother and I packed a few things and went off with my parents.

We were walking on the trail for a while when we finally got to the river which formed from a waterfall on the side of the mountain. We started to walk up the trail that led up the side of the mountain. The view was really nice once we got to the top, but the trail ended pretty quickly because the mountain got really steep and really rough ahead. We started to turn around when Richy said that he wanted a better look. I turned around to see what he meant when I saw him climbing over the fence and onto some pretty jagged rocks.

"Richy get back here NOW!" My dad commanded my little brother.

"Just a sec' Dad, I just want a better view of the hotel from here, I'll be back in no time," Richy insisted.

"Richy get off of those rocks there not safe," my mom said.

I looked down to see what he might fall on if something happened. _Nothing but more rocks, so much for a carefree vacation. _I thought to myself. I looked back up and I couldn't find Richy anywhere.

"I'm okay. Wow the hotel looks so small from here," Richy called out.

"Well that's great. Now get back here but be careful," my mom said.

A moment later we heard Richy's foot steps on the rocks as he started to walk back. Then I heard a rumbling sound like the rocks were moving around. All of the sudden we hear Richy scream and watch in horror as he fell down twenty feet onto the rocks below. My dad and I ran down the lower part of the trail so we could reach Richy by crossing through woods, while my mom ran to get some help. Once we got to Richy we picked him up and tried to see that he was okay. He was awake and but he looked like he broke his arm and would need to go to the hospital. My dad carried Richy back to the hotel were my mom had an ambulance waiting already. The doctor told us that Richy would have to spend the night at the hospital but we could pick him up in the mourning.

The next day we started to pack up and clean our room because it was our last day. I had twice the work since Richy was gone and his stuff was still in our room. Once we were all packed up my mom said that she wanted to go to the garden centre to pick up some flowers for Richy. Regardless of what my dad and I told her she insisted on getting flowers for the kid. So we headed down to the garden centre and started to look for flowers when I saw an appealing looking girl by the cacti. So I told my parents I would be right back in a minute. The girl was looking at the Saguaro cactus when I walked up to her and started looking at the Barrel cacti. We started talking about how we really liked how big and long the Saguaro cactus was and how round and circular the Barrel cactus was. We started to get along pretty well when all of the sudden we heard gun shots and people screaming. We both ducked down and looked around wondering were the shots were from. But I knew. Somehow I knew.

I looked inside of the greenhouse that my parents were in when I last saw them. There they were, kneeling on the ground with their hands behind their heads. I turned and looked more to my left and I saw Ray. He was standing, facing my parents with a gun pointed at them. I looked around the rest of the room. All the other people were lying on the ground terrified.

"You couldn't just leave after that last hint I gave you?" He said to my parents.

"I figured what happened to your son would have been a bit of an eye opener," He continued.

"What do you mean? How do you know about what happened to Richy?"

"Oh, well you know kids, they just can't let things be sometimes, and sometimes you need to teach them a lesson," he replied.

"You mean you pushed him off the rocks and made him break his arm!"

"Now I refuse to take responsibility for the kids broken arm. I didn't make him fall on his arm, he did that himself."

Then Ray turned away from my parents to see one of the other hostages trying to sneak away. As he yelled at them to get back with the gun pointed down I ran and tackled him to the floor. He tried to throw me off of him, and the gun slid to the middle of the room were none of the hostages were. Once he got up, he ran for the gun but I dove and knocked the gun out of his range. He started to get angry and was losing focus. I tried to grab the gun but Ray caught me by the leg and pulled me back. He flipped me on my back and started punching me again and again and again in the head. Once he stopped my head felt like a beating drum thumping over and over. I looked up after a minute to get my senses back and Ray was standing over me with the gun pointed right at my face.

"You know out of everyone in your family, I would have thought that you would have caught on or something." Ray said.

"I mean what do you think I mentioned that whole sunset and the end of life thing for anyway? Did you just think I was really weird or what?"

"But none of this matters anymore." He said as he cocked the pistol.

I looked around to see if someone was going to do something but everyone was watching this whole thing happen and didn't even try to help.

"Are you ready for your sunset?"

Then I heard police cars in the distance, so did Ray. He turned and stared outside as police came running to the scene. He fired four shots at them and they returned fire. Ray dropped right next to me. His body was looking at me with dead glassy eyes. I felt my parents trying to pull me up and hug me. I couldn't take my eyes off of him. Medics came to the scene and tried to help me after I was punched to a pulp. They said I would be fine.

As I finally got to leave the hotel with my family, I heard someone yell for me. I turned around and saw the cactus girl. She ran up to me and hugged me and said I was really brave. Before she left she handed me a piece of paper with her number on it. _Not bad Devin, not bad. _I told myself.

We got to the hospital and Richy was watching the TV as we walked into the room.

"I can't believe you guys did all that without me!" he said, one arm up with disbelief, the other next to his side in a cast.

I guess you could say that this was the sunset of my story. We got home and things pretty much went back to normal - boring and normal. I called that cactus girl. She turned out to be pretty cool. My brother's arm healed and he went back to annoying me. I'll admit, I will never forget that spring break. Sometimes I think you need those tragic moments in life to draw you closer to the ones you really care about.


End file.
